Starting with a winning role
QUESTION Have any actors won an Oscar for their screen debut?
TO win an acting Oscar, you need a combination of a notable role, good timing, luck and a memorable performance. It is rare, but not unknown, for a first-time actor or actress to hit the target.
Gale Sondergaard won the Best Supporting Actress in 1937 for her first film role in Anthony Adverse.
She went on to have a 50-year acting career, with another nomination in 1946 for Anna And The King Of Siam.
Katina Paxinou won Best Supporting Actress in 1944 for the role of Pilar alongside Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman in For Whom The Bell Tolls. After this debut, she made only a few more films before returning to Greece.
There should be a film made about former soldier Harold Russell. He won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his first film, 1946’s The Best Years Of Our Lives. He was also given an honorary Oscar for ‘bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans’, making him the only person to win two Oscars for the same role.
He was also the first nonprofessional actor to win the award and the only actor to auction his Oscar.
There was a 34-year break between his first and second film, during which time he lost his hands in a military explosion and they were replaced with hooks.
First-timers Mercedes McCambridge won Best Supporting Actress in 1950 for All The King’s Men, while Shirley Booth won Best Actress for her role as Lola Delaney in Come Back, Little Sheba. She also won the Tony for the same role on Broadway, but made only five films.
In her first screen appearance, Eva Marie Saint won the 1955 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for On The Waterfront.
Jo Van Fleet was a successful stage actress, winning Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in East Of Eden.
The most famous Oscar-winning debutant was Julie Andrews in 1965 for Mary Poppins. Walt Disney waited a year for her to make the film due to her pregnancy.
Barbra Streisand shared the Best Actress Oscar in 1969 with Katharine Hepburn, the first tie, for her film debut in Funny Girl.
She is one of the few performers to have won an Emmy, Golden Globe, Oscar and a Tony – which has become known as EGOT!
In their first films, Tatum O’Neal won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Paper Moon at the age of ten, making her the youngest winner of an Academy Award, and 20-year-old Timothy Hutton was the youngest to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, in 1981 for Ordinary People.
Although he had no prior acting experience, Haing S. Ngor won Best Supporting Actor in 1985 for The Killing Fields.
His role as a Cambodian journalist living under the rule of the Khmer Rouge brought his real experiences to the screen.
Marlee Matlin won Best Actress for Children Of A Lesser God in
her first film. She is also the first deaf person to win. Anna Paquin won Best Supporting Actress for The Piano at the age of 11. Jennifer Hudson, who is being tipped for an Oscar in 2022 for Respect, won Best Supporting Actress for her first film, Dreamgirls, while Lupita Nyong’o won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in her debut movie, 12 Years A Slave. James Finnegan, Tralee, Co. Kerry.
QUESTION Is there a recognised medical term for the delusional state whereby people believe themselves to be aliens?
THIS is a form of passivity phenomena, a symptom of schizophrenia. It is characterised by the belief that your thoughts or actions are influenced or controlled by an external agent. It is most commonly expressed when a patient experiences the movement of their limbs like an observer. In extreme cases, it can lead to tragic consequences. A number of school shooters in the US believed they were aliens. A more common syndrome is Capgras delusion or imposter syndrome. It is named after French psychiatrist Joseph Capgras, and the sufferer believes that a friend, spouse, family member or even pet has been replaced by an identical imposter. The delusion occurs in those diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, following a brain injury, and in dementia sufferers. Clive D. Forrest, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion.
QUESTION How did Mount Disappointment in Australia get its name?
THE two explorers who first climbed this peak found the view from the top to be underwhelming and reflected this in the name they chose.
Mount Disappointment is part of the Great Dividing Range in the state of Victoria.
Explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell climbed its 800 metres in 1824, hoping to see Port Phillip Bay, where Melbourne was later sited, 60km south. Unfortunately, trees obscured the view.
Australia has many unusual place names. On a visit to the Snowy River National Park in Victoria, my wife and I drove past a petrol station and a group of houses called Seldom Seen, no doubt because of its lack of visitors. It shouldn’t be confused with Nowhere Else in Tasmania, which got its name because the road leads only to a small collection of farms.
Foul Bay in South Australia was named by explorer Matthew Flinders because it provided a poor anchorage for his ship, the HMS Investigator.
It is not to be confused with Smelleys Lagoon in New South Wales, Dismal Swamp in Tasmania or Stinkhole, also in Tasmania, which are self-explanatory.
Mount Buggery in Victoria was named in the 1930s by Stewart Middleton, a member of the Melbourne Walking Club, who failed to see the attraction of such an arduous climb. Other rude place names are Spanker Knob in Victoria, Burrumbuttock in New South Wales and Intercourse Island in Western Australia.
Is there a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, DMG Media, Two Haddington Buildings, 20-38 Haddington Road, Dublin 4, D04 HE94. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles. legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.